THE plea for racial tolerance and social equality that lies behind Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird is as vital today as when it was penned, believes actor Gwyn Vaughan Jones.

Tim Baker’s award-winning production is being re-staged at Mold’s Clwyd Theatr Cymru next month before again touring Wales.

It stars Gwyn, originally from Blaenau Ffestiniog but who now lives in Penrhyndeudraeth, as lawyer Atticus Finch. It’s a role he also took in the theatre’s first staging of the production nine years ago.

And it’s a change from Gwyn’s present role as disciplinarian dad Arthur in S4C’s Rownd a Rownd.

"Arthur is great to play because he’s an ambiguous character, a lot of people see him as very nice but he’s a tyrant when he gets home and his stepkids hate him. But he’s simply trying to keep them from being delinquents.

"So it’s a real change to go back to playing Atticus Finch, which I played in 2001-2 and we also took on a national tour – we picked up the Manchester Evening News award for best touring play in 2002.

"It’s the same script and about half the same cast, so it’s like coming back to a big family," said Gwyn.

"There’s some new faces, including the young actress who plays Scout – she’s the narrator and has a huge role."

Gwyn also has lengthy scenes, including a near 10-minute speech to the audience – who sit as jury – pleading for the innocence of his client.

Published in 1960, To Kill a Mocking Bird is one of the most successful modern books, with more than 30 million copies sold.

Harper Lee’s only published work, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and became a successful film the following year starring Gregory Peck as Finch.

Never out of print since then, the novel remains a perennial bestseller and school curriculum text.

Set in the deep south, Alabama in the Great Depression years of the 1930s, momentous events unfold through the eyes of eight-year-old Scout Finch (played by Amy Morgan) growing up in a close-knit neighbourhood with her older brother Jem (Joshua McCord).

When their father Atticus, a well respected lawyer, mounts a vigorous case for the defence of Tom Robinson, a poor black lawyer accused of the rape of a young white girl Myella Ewell (Rhian Blythe, recently seen on TV in S4C’s Blodau) an idyllic world of childhood is changed forever.

Gwyn added: "It’s still as relevant today as it raises questions of racism.

"Young people can understand it in terms of Obama as US president and what he’s faced. It’s also about dysfunctional families and how children see the world."